That I Might Drink and Leave the World Unseen
by Leahelisabeth
Summary: Sam is drinking to forget but the only thing he finds in small town bar is a reminder of how much he needs his big brother. Warning, here there be violence. Hurt!Sam and protective!Dean. This was my submission for Supernatural Summergen.


A/N: This is my fic for the spn_summergen challenge this summer. It was written for Shannanigans. I received prompts for drunk Sammy, drugged Sammy, or Concussed Sammy, all with awesome big brother Dean to the rescue. Naturally, I decided to do all three. The title comes from Keat's "Ode to a Nightingale."

Sam's consciousness was feeling a little on the reluctant side. He peeled open crusted eyelids to see a keyboard mere centimetres from his face. He grimaced when he noticed the embarrassingly large puddle of drool underneath his chin. As he stretched he glanced back at the screen of his laptop and sighed. There had been at least 5 new leads but not a single one of them had ended up being helpful. He yawned and stood up. Dean was passed out on the bed in his jeans, exhausted after their hunt. Sam was jealous. Dean had less than three months left on his deal and he was sleeping like a baby while the thoughts in Sam's head never stopped whirling around.

He shut the lid of his laptop and looked at the bedside clock. It was barely past midnight. The bar would still be open and, with Sam's frame of mind, it was either go down a few or shoot something, most likely candidate being his frustratingly unproductive laptop. He stood up and strode across the room, stepping into his shoes and slinging his jacket across his shoulders. At the last second, he turned back and left a note for his brother. Dean may be less concerned about his upcoming hellhound mauling but he would still freak out to wake up to an empty room.

Sam breathed deeply as he turned away from the motel door and strode into the night air. He could finally breathe a little. The brisk pace loosened his tense shoulders and shook off the last remnants of drowsiness. When he reached the bar, he was tempted to just keep walking but instead he walked into the smoky bar with the dim lighting. There were three other customers, all old and rundown and alone, and one hardened bartender with leathery skin, frizzled hair, and the yellow teeth of a chainsmoker.

"What'll you have," she rasped.

"Whiskey, cheapest you got. And keep 'em coming," Sam said softly. The first one burned but by the time he had tossed back several more, he began to feel pleasantly numb.

A woman came and sat at the bar beside him. Sam ignored her until she turned and spoke to him.

"Sam Winchester," she smirked gleefully. "Imagine running into you here. What a coincidence."

Sam looked over at her, confused. He didn't recognize the woman sitting beside him. She was pretty but a little bit blurry around the edges. Sam shook his head and instantly regretted it as the room started spinning slowly around him. "Do I know you?" he slurred.

"It might be hard for you to remember that far back. After all, I'm sure there have been hundreds of monsters under your knife or in front of the barrel of your gun since I last saw you. How could you be expected to remember everyone you've murdered and the loved ones you leave grieving? Maybe I wasn't enough to jog your memory but perhaps you remember the name, Luther?"

Sam jolted away from her in horror, "Kate?" he asked.

She grinned at him, pointed teeth extruding from her gums for just a moment. "You do remember. Good. And now you can be sure that everything that happens from this moment on is your fault." She reached for his arm. Sam tried to get away but he wasn't fast enough. He felt a pinprick in his bicep and a dreadful numbness spread out quickly from the site.

He could barely hear Kate's voice as she explained to the bartender that her boyfriend had had a few too many and that she would just take him home to sleep it off. Sure, she could use a hand getting him out to the car. Yes, he was a big boy and fully proportional. Too bad he couldn't hold his liquor.

It got colder and darker and it was slightly rough under Sam's feet. He dragged his eyes open, not entirely sure when he had closed them, and realized that Kate was under one arm and the scary bartender lady was under the other and they were dragging him toward a big black truck in the shadows at the end of the parking lot. "Nuuuhhhh," he grunted, trying to drag his feet but he had completely lost control of his body.

He was very quickly strapped into the passenger seat of the van and it was heading down the road away from the motel and Dean. Sam focussed all his strength and energy on his left arm and let his body fall toward the driver, trying to make his arm cooperate enough to the grab the wheel. The van screeched to a halt and a small but strong hand was tightened around his neck. He was pushed back against the window but he kept fighting with the tiny amount of strength he could muster to fight the drug in his veins.

"You are a determined one," Kate chuckled. "But I don't want to fight you all the way home. I wasn't planning on damaging you too much just yet but you leave me no choice." She slammed his head into the window of the truck and the darkness came and took Sam under.

OooOooOoo

One moment, Dean was asleep. The next, he was wide awake. He didn't know what had woken him. He looked down and grimaced when he realized he had been sleeping in his clothes. It wasn't like he expected Sam to undress him but he could have at least woken him up to change, or maybe taken off his damn boots.

In frustration he whipped his pillow over at the other bed but he wasn't greeted by Sam's outraged shout. Puzzled, he sat up. Sam's bed was still made. It hasn't been slept in. Sam also wasn't at the table with his ever present research. It looked like he had even shut down the laptop. the bathroom light wasn't on and the door was open. Sam was simply nowhere to be found.

Dean jumped out of bed and leapt the few steps to the door, yanking it open and hoping to see Sam making a late night vending machine run. The car was still in the parking lot so Sam hadn't taken his baby with him.

He relaxed when he caught sight of the white piece of paper sitting on the table. He expected to see that Sam was just out walking so the fact that he had headed to the bar brought out different worries. He glanced down at his watch. It was 2:49 am and last call was certainly no later than 2:00. Even factoring in a drunken stumble, Sam should have been back at least twenty minutes ago and it was enough to trigger his "big brother radar."

"I swear, Sammy, if you are drunk off your ass and you've fallen in a puddle, I am going to leave you there until you sober up," Dean grumbled as he walked out the door. He debated about taking the car but figured it might be too hard to miss something Sam-shaped in the ditch.

When he reached the bar, the lights were still on, even though the door said they were closed. "Hey! Open up!" Dean shouted, pounding on the door. "Sammy, you in there?"

A woman opened the door up a crack and glared out at him. "The hell do you think you are doing? We're closed. I don't care how desperate you are." She began to push the door closed but Dean managed to get his boot in between the door and the frame.

"I don't need a drink. I just want to know if you've seen my brother. He's tall, got a hippie haircut and after looking into his eyes you probably wanted to pet him and take him home."

The woman snorted. "Yeah, he was here but he isn't any more. He got so drunk he all but passed out at the bar and his girlfriend came and took him home. Go ask her where she is and get the hell out of my bar." She kicked at his foot and pushed on the door again.

Dean paled and his Sammy sensors dialled up to eleven. "He doesn't have a girlfriend. We're not from here. Which way did they go?"

"Right and out of town in her big black truck. Are you sure he doesn't know her? They seemed real friendly, talking with their heads close together. And she was right pretty, even in spite of the teeth," the woman babbled.

"Teeth?" Dean asked, dreading the answer.

"Yeah, she had 'em all filed down into sharp points. It looked downright unnatural. I only caught one glimpse and after that I didn't look too hard." The woman looked at him and must have noticed the worried frown he couldn't quite hide. "I'm sure he'll be fine. He's a big guy. He can probably take care of himself."

"Yeah, you'd think so," Dean muttered before turning and sprinting back to the motel. They had been hunting a Black Dog but some of the corpses had been suspiciously bloodless. Maybe there was a nest around piggybacking off the kill count. The best he could hope for is that this particular nest played with their food. "Hang on, Sammy," he whispered. "I'm coming."

OooOooOoo

The world was spinning and Sam wasn't sure where he was anymore. The stench of copper was almost overwhelming and he could hear whispered voices, just far enough away from him that he couldn't hear what they were saying. He struggled with his eyelids and managed to get them open enough to register that he was tied flat on his back in an old, rotting basement. He turned his head just a little to figure out more but it was a mistake. His eyes slammed shut with a whimper as the movement sent jagged spikes of pain through his temples. He swallowed hard as his lunch threatened to make a reappearance.

"Sammy's awake," a woman's voice came from above him.

Sam dragged his eyes open once more. "Kate," he hissed.

"In the flesh. I'm so glad you're awake. I suppose I hit your head just a little bit too hard. How's it feeling? Concussion? Any blurred vision or dizziness?" She shone a flashlight in his eyes.

Sam lost the battle with his stomach in a spectacular fashion. He tried to turn his head enough to vomit on the floor but it puddled by his face and threatened to choke him.

"You're pathetic. I have no idea how you managed to get the best of any of us, much less kill Luther." Kate cut the rope attaching his left hand to the table and swung him over the edge. Sam kept heaving as he emptied his supper onto the floor. His stomach contracted long after it was empty, strings of bile dripping onto the floor.

"That's disgusting," Kate said when he had finally finished. She pushed him back over and retied his wrist. "I suppose it's kind of my fault. Not the drinking obviously. You were already nicely liquored up when I found you in that bar. But the drug and the concussion, that was all me," she grinned down at him.

"Why...now?" Sam gasped, trying to focus on her face.

"Wrong place, wrong time. That is all this is. I planned to build up my little family a little bit more before daring to take on the famous Winchesters. You've been gaining quite the reputation in the last couple of years and I didn't want my new family to go the way of Luther. But then you walked into that bar all alone and I knew I would hate myself forever if I didn't take this opportunity," She leaned down and sniffed at his neck. "The vomit is gross but it can't quite cover the scent of your blood. Sam, has anyone ever told you how good you smell? I can't quite put my finger on it but you are something special."

Sam tried to pull himself away but his head wouldn't stop spinning and he was afraid he was going to puke again. Her explanation had started to break up at the end as his brain tried to plunge him back into unconsciousness. "Deeaannn," he moaned.

Kate laughed, the sound shrill and piercing in his fragile head. "Dean isn't coming. He's probably already dead. My children are draining his corpse as we speak."

Sam looked up at her, his brain felt fuzzy. He heard Dean's name. Did she say he was dead. And Sam remembered that his brother was always going to die. It didn't matter if it happened today or if he had the rest of his time before the deal came due. Dean was going to die and there was nothing he could do to stop it. "Deeaannn," he moaned again, this time accompanied by a flood of tears.

"Finally," Kate smirked. "Tears. That's my cue." Her teeth slid out of her gums, gleaming in the dim lighting. She sniffed his neck again, savoring the scent, prolonging the anticipation. Sam shivered. His consciousness was hanging on by a thread but he could feel the sharp points of her fangs teasing the skin over his carotid artery.

"Not there," she chuckled. "Too fast. I'm going to feast on you for days. She reared back and sank her fangs deep in his shoulder. The pain broke through the fog surrounding Sam and he screamed and kept screaming.

Things happened very quickly after that. Kate's mouth was torn out of his shoulder and her scream of outrage was cut short by the squelching sound of a machete through flesh. Sam could only blink, stunned, hardly able to believe it was over.

"Dean?" he asked.

"Of course, Sammy. Who else would it be?" his big brother's blood spattered face finally appeared above him as Dean started to cut his bonds.

"Said y'were dead," Sam choked out.

"And you believed her?" Dean laughed but his hands grew gentler as they wiped away the evidence of his earlier tears. "It takes more than a couple baby vamps to take me out. I'm Batman, remember?"

"Hellhounds?" Sam looked up at his brother, fresh tears replacing the tear tracks Dean had brushed away.

Dean's hands cupped the sides of Sam's face and looked into his confused eyes. "Geez Sammy, just how drunk are you?"

Sam laughed, a hysterical note edging into his voice. "Drugged...my head."

A chunk of plaid cloth appeared at Sam's shoulder and pressed hard. "Keep pressure on this, will you?" Dean cradled Sam's head in his hands and felt carefully around. He cursed when he found the large knot. "At least it doesn't seem to be bleeding too much. Which is more than I can say for your shoulder. I thought I told you to keep pressure on that."

Sam groaned as Dean pressed down hard. "Wanna go," he whined.

"I know, little brother. I'm just making sure you're ready to move. Are you hurt anywhere else?"

Sam started to shake his head before thinking better of it. "M'good."

Dean sighed. "Ok, let's get you on your feet." He helped his brother up in stages. He sat him up on the table first, swung his legs over the side and then finally helped him get shakily to his feet. "You gonna puke, Sammy?"

Sam shook his head and vomited down the back of Dean's shoulder. He was so grateful when Dean didn't even mention it. He just manhandled him out to the car and settled him into his regular seat. Sam closed his eyes and snuggled in. The familiar weight of Dean's leather jacket settled over his shoulders. Sam pushed it away at first, his nose wrinkling at the thought of vampire blood spatter.

"Leave it, Princess. I wasn't wearing it when the baby vamps attacked and I took it off before coming inside because I knew you'd want to cuddle with it after." Dean reached out and pulled the warmth up higher. "Don't forget to keep pressure on that shoulder. It's basically stopped but I want to keep as much of you on the inside as possible before I stitch you up."

Tears prickled in Sam's eyes again at the gruffness disguising the tender concern in Dean's voice. The familiar sound of Led Zeppelin started up on the radio, barely audible, just enough for the familiar sounds to drive the last bit of tension from Sam's body. Sam stretched one long arm across the bench seat and tangled his fingers in the hem of Dean's t-shirt.

"You're such a girl, Sammy. We're going to pretend this never happened when you wake up tomorrow. Or maybe the next day, because with the massive hangover you're going to have tomorrow, I'm probably going to give you a day pass to be Octopus Sammy for a little longer."

Dean kept talking but Sam was sick of focussing. He drifted off, not thinking anymore, only feeling. Dean's voice rumbled softly in his ear. "Babe, I'm Gonna Leave You," played on the radio and Sam resolutely refused to pay attention to the lyrics, letting the familiar chords lull him closer toward sleep. The smell of leather was in his nose. He pressed the jacket closer to his face to drown out the smell of blood and sickness. He wrapped himself up in Dean and tried his very hardest to forget that in three very short months, he would reach out his hand, asking for help, and Dean would never again be there to take it.

END


End file.
